St George Mining Advancing Mount Alexander
THE INSIDE STORY: St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) is bracing itself for further encouraging drilling results from the company’s Mount Alexander project in Western Australia.
St George Mining has achieved a steady stream of positive drilling results at Mt Alexander since acquiring the project from BHP Billiton Nickel West in 2016.
The company recently announced the discovery of further massive nickel-copper sulphides at the Investigators prospect from a major drill program it currently has underway at the project.
Three from five drill holes completed at Investigators successfully tested three separate EM conductors.
“The discovery of further high-grade nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation at Investigators confirms the potential to significantly expand the known mineralisation at this prospect, where mineralisation has already been shown to be present recurrently over a strike length of 1.3 kilometres,” St George Mining executive chairman John Prineas said.
“We are very excited by this early success and the potential for more discoveries as the drilling continues.”
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The drill holes – MAD43, MAD44 and MAD45 –all intersected massive nickel-copper sulphides while the other two drill holes – MAD41 and MAD42 – encountered prospective ultramafic but not targeted EM conductors.
MAD43 tested an off-hole DHEM plate at Investigators to a downhole depth of 180 metres, intersecting a 10.2m thick ultramafic unit from 147.8m with nickel-copper sulphides.
Drilling encountered a 9.42m thick interval, from 147.8m, of ultramafic with weak-moderate blebby and disseminated sulphides and a 0.73m thick interval, from 157.22m, of massive sulphides with spot XRF readings averaging 5.1 per cent nickel and 2.15 per cent copper.
MAD44 tested another DHEM plate, located approximately 65m to the west of the DHEM plate tested by MAD43.
MAD44 was also drilled to a downhole depth of 180m, intersecting 8.14m of ultramafic from 147.35m with rare disseminated sulphides and remobilised massive to semi-massive sulphides in granite just below the ultramafic contact from 155.69m to 156.11m.
XRF readings of the massive sulphide demonstrated variation in the nickel content from 5 to 6 per cent nickel in the core to 27 per cent nickel in the coarse grained pentlandite-rich rims.
MAD45 tested SAMSON Anomaly 6, intersecting ultramafic from 165.2m downhole with the profile of the sulphide mineralisation intersecting weak disseminated and blebby sulphides, moderate blebby and disseminated sulphides.
It also hit 0.88m of strong disseminated and matrix sulphides from 178m to 178.88m and 0.2m of massive sulphide from 178.88m to 179.08m.
St George is conducting additional DHEM surveys to better define the location of the EM conductors, which were originally modelled from surface EM data.
The drill program at Mt Alexander is ongoing with multiple targets at the Stricklands and Cathedrals Prospects yet to be drilled, with additional drill holes to be planned by Sat George after the DHEM surveys.
The company is confident the drilling is on track to discover more high-grade nickel-copper sulphides and to expand the mineralisation in the Cathedrals Belt.
St George has been pleased with the portable XRF analysis results showing high-grades of nickel and copper in the mineralisation the drilling has intersected.
The company is eagerly awaiting laboratory assays to confirm these values, which it also expects to indicate high values of cobalt and PGEs consistent with previous high-grade mineralisation intersected in the Cathedrals Belt to date.
St George also has a gold string to its project bow and has been drilling at it 100 per cent-owned East Laverton project, also in WA.
Earlier drilling at East Laverton focused on the Ascalon and Bristol gold prospects, identifying potential for gold mineralisation.
It also generated robust targets for follow-up drilling that were assessed by leading expert on gold mineralisation and targeting in the Yilgarn Craton of WA, Dr Walter Witt.
Witt’s review confirmed the strong gold potential at East Laverton, and prioritised multiple targets for exploration in 2017.
A reverse circulation (RC) drill program is currently underway on the highest rated targets in the Stella Range Belt, which are at Desert Dragon, Cambridge and Cambridge North.
“Reconnaissance exploration we completed recognised the significant gold potential at East Laverton,” Prineas said.
“We were pleased this prospectivity was confirmed by one of Western Australia’s leading gold experts.
“We are systematically progressing all our exploration efforts in 2017, working through our pipeline of attractive gold and nickel-copper sulphide targets.”
St George Mining Ltd. (ASX: SGQ)
… The Short Story
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DIRECTORS
John Prineas, Tim Hronsky, Sarah Shipway